Rescue workers evacuating people buried under the rubble of a building in the Tallet el-Khayat neighborhood, in central Beirut, which was hit by an Israeli bombardment early in the evening. Photo Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour
BEIRUT — In a statement released Wednesday, Hezbollah denounced the Israeli strikes that hit "civilian areas" in Lebanon, adding that the Israeli army of committed "a series of massacres against innocent civilians."
"Through its blind hatred, habitual crime and boundless savagery, the Israeli enemy today targeted civilian areas in the southern suburbs and Beirut, as well as Saida, the South, and the Bekaa, causing hundreds of martyrs and wounded among children, women and the elderly," the statement said.
The party described these strikes as "blatant war crimes and acts of genocide" and said they amounted to "a desperate attempt to take revenge on citizens after all attempts to break this proud people and bring them to submission had failed."
Hezbollah insisted that "the blood of the martyrs and the wounded will not be shed in vain" and that these attacks "confirm our natural and legal right to resist the occupation and respond to its aggression" and strengthen the movement's determination to "hold back the enemy, defend our people, our homeland, and protect our security in the face of ongoing aggression."
By early evening, the Health Ministry reported the preliminary grim toll of at least 112 people killed and 837 others wounded.
